Guy Montavonis General Manager of the Erfurt Opera Company/Germany since August 2002. He was born in Geneva, in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, in 1961. He gained a diploma as a bassoonist at the Geneva Conservatoire and then worked as an assistant director at the Grand Théâtre de Genève. After that he studied Musical Theatre Direction at the Hamburg Academy of Drama and Music under the famous german director Götz Friedrich. As an assistant to the internationally renowned director Giancarlo del Monaco, Guy Montavon worked at many different opera houses, including those of Hamburg, Berlin, Stuttgart, Bregenz and Barcelona, as well as at the New York Metropolitan Opera. After graduating in 1986, he directed at the Hamburg State Opera, in Livorno, Pisa, Lyon, St. Gallen, Montpellier and Saarbrücken. From 1992 to 1995 he held a long-term appointment as Artistic Director and Deputy Operatic Director at the Bonn opera house. Guy Montavon directed “Carmen” for the inauguration of the new opera house in Helsinki, in 1993. From 1996 onwards, Guy Montavon was Theatre Director and Managing Director of the Stadttheater Giessen. He is a jury member for a number of renowned singing competitions and a guest lecturer in Operatic Interpretation at the university of Tokyo. Guy Montavon became 2008 “Chevallier des arts et lettres” of the French Republic.